Posts Tagged ‘Business’

Web design is a relatively young field. It's youthful, growing and made up of people from all kinds of backgrounds, many of whom lack formal design training. We have learned, and still are learning, as we go. I came into my first job as a Web designer for Boeing back in the mid-1990s, with no formal design training. I was lucky to get some training on the job, and I would guess that my experience there was similar to that of many who are reading this article.

I had the opportunity to work with some very talented and highly experienced designers who all had made the jump from other design fields to the Web. It was there, as part of that training, that I learned about critiquing, both giving and receiving, through regular design reviews.

Business Web application design is too often neglected. I see a lot of applications that don't meet the needs of either businesses or users and thus contribute to a loss of profit and poor user experience. It even happens that designers are not involved in the process of creating applications at all, putting all of the responsibility on the shoulders of developers.

This is a tough task for developers, who may have plenty of back-end and front-end development experience but limited knowledge of design. This results in unsatisfied customers, frustrated users and failed projects.

So, we will cover the basics of user interface design for business Web applications. While one could apply many approaches, techniques and principles to UI design in general, our focus here will be on business Web applications.

Meet John the client. John runs a reasonably large website. He is a marketer who considers himself smart, articulate and professional. That said, he doesn’t know much about Web design, and so he needs your help. John comes to you with a clear set of business objectives and asks for a quote. But what happens next leaves John confused, frustrated and extremely unhappy.

Before giving John his quote, you ask a little more about the project. After chatting for a few minutes, you ask him about his budget. A fair question, you think. After all, you could approach the project in so many ways. Without knowing the budget, knowing where to begin is impossible. In your mind, building a website is like building a house. Without knowing the budget, you can’t possibly know how many rooms the client can afford or what materials you should use to build.

Upon first thinking about it, the idea of selling advertising on a website or blog with limited traffic seems a bit daft. After all, aren't most advertisers interested in putting their product in front of the highest number of eyeballs possible? Approaching them with piddly visitor numbers seems like a surefire way to end up in the deleted folder. But though it may feel like putting the cart before the horse, there are many good reasons and ways to sell ad space on low-traffic websites. What you need to always keep in mind is that, while advertisers are drawn to high traffic numbers, they desire something else even more: high conversion rates.

There are plenty of success stories of websites that have limited traffic but sell a ton of advertising. These websites succeed because they do one thing well: they deliver the right type of customer to the right type of business.

Whether a designer, developer, blogger, or freelancer, you surely have a to-do list on which certain items slowly inch their way down. These forgotten items add up fast! Think of all the items that you've discarded from your to-do list to save time. Even more frightening, what items might you have overlooked to meet a deadline? What have you left on the proverbial cutting-room floor yet again?

What better time than the new year, or new decade for that matter, to tackle your neglected checklist? In this article, we'll look at some commonly overlooked items on a typical checklist (in no particular order). Some are new, some are commonsense and some are not so minor and ought never to be forgotten. So, let's get started in this young year by striking off some items from your to-do list!

There are very few who would argue against the notion that most freelance professionals, especially those operating in the design/development and writing arenas, tend to operate from a creative base. They are, by and large, a group that has chosen to let the right side of their brain steer them as far as the road stretches out before them. Having embraced their creative and artistic nature, merging it into their career path and never looking back. And for the most part, a creative mind fits well in this freelance environment where they ultimately call all the shots and are bound by very few restraints. For the most part.

However this road is not without its bumps, and for a lot of freelancers, these bumps come when the left brain must be engaged to navigate the terrain. Most of us are familiar with the concept of &#145'Right Brain vs. Left Brain, wherein it has been shown that the two hemispheres of the brain control different modes of thinking. The right is the creative and artistic side, the left being the more logical and analytical.

Given that most of us are less apt to be full-minded, where we excel in both modes of thinking, there always tends to be some issues when it comes time for you to mentally cross-over to the otherside for a spell. This can be a problem in freelancing, because though we prefer to tend right, we have to handle every aspect of our business and that means every so often, going left.

I read somewhere that showing your client the full range of your creative ideas during a project is important, the rationale being that the client is entitled to see the ideas coming from the creative professional who they have hired and invested in. While this approach has some benefits, in some cases showing too many ideas is counter-productive to the natural flow of a project. Proof of how imaginative you are can be shown in other ways.

Scenario 1. You look at your Illustrator pasteboard and see half a dozen cool logo ideas... not just cool, but super-cool... not just super-cool, actually, but practical and appropriate. You have translated the brief brilliantly. You feel rather pleased with yourself. However, the last time you showed a client all of your ideas, you got caught up in a dizzying merry-go-round, forced to mash up parts of one logo with parts of another, using unsuitable and under-baked concepts.

There's very little to stop anyone becoming a freelancer. In a highly competitive and, in most places, saturated market, you need to make sure your reputation as a freelancer is well-managed and continues to grow. It's very possible to get a good reputation without being the best in the world, and it's even easier to lose that reputation.

In this article, we'll explore 15 habits that are essential in helping freelancers effectively safeguard and grow their reputation, and we'll also discuss how to make freelancing work for you. The habits are split into 3 sections:

Designers spend hours perfecting websites, whether their own or their clients'. When you've invested anywhere from a few days to months in a website, the last thing you want is for someone else to steal the design without even giving you proper credit (or compensation). And if you're a template or theme designer, it's an even bigger problem. After all, if your templates are available online for free, a lot of people won't bother paying for them.

So what can you do if you've discovered that one of your designs has been ripped off? What should you do? Read on for a complete guide to steps you can take to protect your intellectual property.

I am not a lawyer, nor do I pretend to be one on TV, so the advice here should not be taken as legal advice. Before taking any of the actions mentioned below, check with a lawyer or other legal expert to see what is allowable in your state or country or to see if additional options are available to you.

There is a famous quote that says, "There is strength in numbers." This can be very true when it comes to being a freelancer. As a one-man shop, you are often times limited because of your lack of abilities in certain areas. In this article, we will be discussing the importance of forming professional alliances with others in order for you to grow your freelance business.

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